Inside out Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus Papers

Daniel W. Smith

Félix Guattari met in Paris shortly after written between 1969 and 1972, addressed to Deleuze, the events of May 1968, through a mutual friend. Over and they constitute the basis for much of the material the next twenty-five years, he would co-author five in Anti-Oedipus (a few of the papers were written after books with Deleuze, including, most famously, the the publication of Anti-Oedipus in March of 1972, and two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia – Anti- anticipate A Thousand Plateaus). The manuscripts Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (1981). Their were never meant to be published in their own right, collaboration, a kind of French version of Marx and and no doubt some will question their significance, Engels, sparked enormous interest and curiosity: what much as the value of Nietzscheʼs vast Nachlass has had led them to undertake their joint labour? How been disputed. Authors are indeed assessed by their exactly did they work and write together? In 1972, fruits, not their roots. Yet there is new and informative Guattari had not yet written a book of his own; his material here, at least for readers with the patience to first book, and Transversality, would toil through Guattariʼs jottings. The papers, as one be published shortly after Anti-Oedipus, with an intro- might expect, vary widely in style, content and tone, ductory essay by Deleuze. Deleuze, by contrast, was ranging from fairly developed theoretical proposals already a well-known figure in French philosophy to scattered notes on diverse topics to early chapter and the author of ten influential works, including the outlines for A Thousand Plateaus. Several texts are landmark (1962) and his little more than notes on books Guattari was reading, magnum opus and Repetition (1968). The including Leroi-Gourhanʼs Milieu et techniques, Jean- nature of Guattariʼs influence on Deleuze, in particular, Toussaint Desantiʼs Les Idéalitiés mathématiques, as is still the object of debate. Was Guattari a bad influ- well as Deleuzeʼs own book on Spinoza, Expression- ence, transforming the good Deleuze-as-philosopher ism in Philosophy, which Guattari had evidently not (the solo Deleuze – dry and even dull, but rigorous read prior to their collaboration. The final section and scholarly) into the bad and crazy Deleuze-as- of the book includes entries from a 1971–72 journal desiring machine (the Deleuze of the D&G writing that Guattari was apparently encouraged to write at machine – irreverent and flamboyant, but philosophi- the suggestion of Deleuze and his wife Fanny. Not cally suspect)? Or was it Guattari who compelled an surprisingly, it includes the most personal and gossipy aloof or even ʻelitistʼ Deleuze to go beyond his natural passages of the volume, recording the ups and downs metaphysical tendencies and confront social and politi- of Guattariʼs relations with his girlfriends, patients cal issues directly? There remain, to this day, partisans and colleagues. on both sides of the issue. Kélina Gotman is to be commended for having The publication of Guattariʼs Anti-Oedipus Papers1 produced a fluid and readable translation, making these has opened up a new window on the Deleuze–Guattari texts easily accessible to English-speaking readers. The collaboration. Editor Stéphane Nadaud – who pro- volume, however, is not without its editorial quirks. vides a helpful introductory essay – has here gathered Strangely, Nadaud decided not to publish the papers in together the Guattari manuscripts that are archived their chronological order (though some texts are dated at the Institut Mémoires de lʼEdition Contemporaine by Guattari himself), but instead has organized the (IMEC) at the Abbaye dʼArdenne. The papers were texts around six thematic sections of his own choosing.

* Félix Guattari, The Anti-Oedipus Papers, ed. Stéphane Nadaud, trans. Kélina Gotman, Semiotext(e), New York, 2006. 384 pp., £11.95 pb., 1 584 35031 8.

Radical Philosophy 140 (November/December 2006) 35 Moreover, although Nadaud notes that almost all of Nous Deuxʼ, Libération, 12 September 1991). Deleuze Guattariʼs texts ʻwere annotated by Deleuzeʼ, the foot- would later confirm that he ʻmade a sort of move into notes only cite slightly more than twenty such annota- politics around May ʼ68, as I came into contact with tions, many of which say little more than ʻunderlined specific problems, through Guattari, though , by Deleuzeʼ. Obviously, Deleuzeʼs annotations were through Elie Sambarʼ (Deleuze, Negotiations [1995], more extensive than that: at one point, for example, p. 170. Elie Sambar was the editor of the Revue des Nadaud indicates that Guattariʼs text ʻis followed by études palestiniennes). Prior to his meeting Deleuze, two pages written by Deleuze on the infinitiveʼ. Yet Guattariʼs work had been dispersed primarily in four none of these more substantial responses by Deleuze is different areas: his involvement in leftist activism, included in the volume. Both decisions are regrettable his co-directorship of the La Borde Clinic (with Jean – Nadaud says he wanted to publish the texts in their Oury), his attendance at Jacques Lacanʼs seminars, ʻpureʼ form – since they make it difficult to follow and his psychotherapeutic work with schizophrenics. the development of Guattariʼs own thinking or to get For his part, he later explained, ʻI felt a need, not to a sense of the creative give-and-take that took place integrate, but to make some connections between these between him and Deleuze. A well-constructed index four ways I was living, I had some reference points would have made it easier for the reader to trace out … but I didnʼt have the logic I needed to make the various themes in these inevitably ad hoc texts. None- connectionsʼ (Negotiations, p. 15). theless, we should be grateful to Nadaud for having spoke freely about the working undertaken the editorial work required to make these method that they worked out between themselves, papers available in published form. Readers, depending or what they called their ʻwriting machineʼ. Initially on their interests, will find many paths to follow (and they wrote letters, then had face-to-face meetings, construct) through these texts; I will highlight a few and finally sent manuscripts back and forth, with of them. constant corrections and revisions. Their collaboration was a working relationship, not a social one: they Amis, pas copains were friends (amis), but not buddies (copains), and ʻIt is easier to follow the thread of a good authorʼ, continued to refer to each other with the formal vous wrote Leibniz in the preface to his great book on rather than the familiar tu. One of the revelations of Locke, the New Essays, ʻthan to do everything by The Anti-Oedipus Papers is the important role that oneʼs own efforts.ʼ Such might have been Deleuzeʼs Deleuzeʼs wife Fanny played in the writing process, motto as well. He famously found it difficult to write serving as both a go-between and an amanuensis, ʻin his own nameʼ, and his usual modus operandi was typing up Guattariʼs notes and funnelling the manu- to enter into a ʻbecomingʼ with the authors on whom scripts between the two authors. Guattari speaks often he was writing (Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Nietzsche, of his affection for her – ʻIʼm supported by someone Bergson), creating a kind of zone of indetermination who types, corrects, readsʼ – but also of ʻher demand- between himself and them. His collaboration with ing natureʼ. Despite the definition of philosophy given Guattari seems to have functioned in exactly the same in What is Philosophy?, Guattari did not always seem manner, albeit, of course, with a living author. ʻAt the to conceive of his work as the production of concepts. beginning of our relation, it was Félix who sought me ʻHis ideas are like drawings, or even diagramsʼ rather outʼ, Deleuze recalled in a 1991 interview. ʻI didnʼt than concepts, Deleuze noted elsewhere. ʻFrom my know him.… My encounter with Félix took place perspective, Félix had these brainstorms, and I was around questions concerning psychoanalysis and the like a lightning rod. Whatever I grounded would unconscious. Félix brought me a kind of new field, he leap up again, changed, and then Félix would start made me discover a new domain, even if I had spoken againʼ (Deleuze, Two Regimes of Madness: Texts and of psychoanalysis beforehand.ʼ ʻIt was me who sought Interviews 1975–1995 [2006], p. 238). Brainstorms him outʼ, confirmed Guattari, ʻbut in a second period, harnessed by a lightning rod: such seemed to be the it was he who suggested we work together.… I had nature of the collaboration, with Deleuze functioning been very impressed by the reading of Difference as a conceptual apparatus of capture in relation to and Repetition and Logic of Sense.… He was struck Guattariʼs diagrammatic war-machine. In the end, it by my marked dissidence in relation to , was Deleuze who ʻfinalizedʼ the text of Anti-Oedipus, which was already dominant, and by my way of although they both conceived of the ultimate result approaching political and social problemsʼ (Robert of their work as a truly ʻcollective of Maggiori, ʻSecret de fabrication: Deleuze–Guattari, enunciationʼ.

36 What The Anti-Oedipus Papers confirm is the being thrust into a new and unwelcome public role, and degree to which their ʻwriting machineʼ functioned, the breaks his writing may introduce into his life. ʻBoth as they themselves liked to say, only on the condition books are finishedʼ, he writes in November 1971. of constantly breaking down. ʻFélix sees writing as a schizoid-flow drawing in all sort of thingsʼ (Negotia- Which fascinates and irritates me. I will have to account for them. I will have to say things, answer tions, p. 6), Deleuze said, and these texts now allow questions. Things will be thought about them, and us to see Guattariʼs schizoid writing-flow in its raw positions taken. What a pain! There will be con- state, as it were, in comparison to which the text of sequences. I feel like scrunching myself up into Anti-Oedipus seems to be a paragon of organization a little ball, becoming tiny, putting an end to this and systematicity. For his part, Guattari frequently whole politics of presence and prestige. Stay in a bemoans the fact that his writing is a ʻmessʼ: ʻI want to corner with little things that donʼt interest anyone. To such an extent that I almost blame Gilles for make an outline this time, but I can tell that itʼs going having dragged me into this mess.… Now every- to be a mess again!ʼ ʻEverything I do is a mess.ʼ ʻSame thing is inscribed: something irreversible with mess all over again. Iʼm so jealous of your ability Lacan, and maybe with Oury and even La Borde. to organize and classify things.ʼ Yet, in one of the more revealing passages of the volume, Guattari reacts Yet what The Anti-Oedipus Papers also makes clear against this predilection on Deleuzeʼs part to organize is how productive these tensions became at the con- and classify, to conceptualize: ʻHe works a lot.… He ceptual level. Although Deleuze declared that ʻneither always has the œuvre in mind. And for him this is all of us assigns a paternity to conceptsʼ, both he and just notes, raw material that disappears into the final Guattari frequently talked about the complex genesis assemblage. Thatʼs how I feel a bit overcoded by Anti- of their concepts. ʻI myself have a strong memory of Oedipus.ʼ Indeed, it would seem that for Guattari – and the introduction of this or that notionʼ, Deleuze said, for many of his fans in the blogosphere – what counted ʻFor example, the “ritournello” … was due initially the most was the mess itself, the schizo-flow: to Guattari. I introduced the “,” taking it from Artaudʼ (Nous Deux, p. 17). It would Writing to Gilles is good when it enters into the not be difficult to continue the list: desiring machines, finality of the common project. But for me, what , , black holes, facial- matters, really, is not that. The energy source is in the mess. The ideas come after.… What I feel ity initially came from Guattari; the notion of the like is just fucking around.… Barf out the fucking- syntheses of the unconscious, as well as the analyses around-o-maniacal schizo flow. (emphasis added) of capitalism and nomadism, were initially due to Deleuze. But the manner in which these concepts were Nowhere do the divergent styles of these two finally articulated seems to have been equally ʻmessyʼ. unlikely co-authors appear more clearly: for Deleuze, Sometimes a division of labour seem to have been the importance of the work lay in the ideas, the con- maintained. Deleuze, for example, seems to have been cepts; whereas ʻthe continuous–discontinuous text flow responsible for their revisionary concept of capitalism: that guarantees my continuanceʼ, Guattari complains, ʻI have the feeling of always wandering around, kind ʻobviously he doesnʼt see it like that. Or he does, but of alone, irresponsiblyʼ, Guattari writes to him early heʼs not interestedʼ. After Anti-Oedipus is published, on, ʻwhile youʼre sweating over capitalism. How could Guattari makes a note to himself on how to keep the I possibly help you?ʼ (137). writing machine going: At other times, the introduction of one concept I donʼt really recognize myself in A.O. I need to would generate another: ʻDeterritorialization, a stop running behind the image of Gilles and the barbarous formula that I had articulatedʼ, Guattari polishedness, the perfection that he brought to the recalled, ʻwas then articulated by Gilles in connec- most unlikely book.… Digest A.O. Liberate myself tion with the concept of the Earth [Terre], which was from it. Itʼs the necessary precondition for writing not, at the start, in my sightsʼ (Nous Deux, p. 17). the rest. In another passage, Guattari proposes an intriguing Indeed, throughout the papers, Guattari expresses his transformation of one of Deleuzeʼs basic concepts, but ambivalence and even insecurity about the entire col- which seems not to have been pursued: ʻMaybe we laboration. On the one hand, the work helped him shouldnʼt make multiplicity [multiplicité] a substantive disengage himself ʻfrom twenty years of Lacano- but a verb: multiplicitate [multipliciter].ʼ Revealingly, Labordian comfort.… At La Borde, I have status, I Guattari indicates that, in September 1972, a mere six have my role to play.ʼ On the other hand, he regrets months after the publication of Anti-Oedipus, Deleuze

37 was already hard at work on the ʻNomadologyʼ chapter merely a propaedeutic to their positive appropriation of of A Thousand Plateaus (ʻGilles is working like a Lacanʼs work. ʻI donʼt personally think the linguistics madman on his nomadsʼ), almost as if Deleuze had is fundamentalʼ, Deleuze later noted; realized, even before finishing Anti-Oedipus, that Thereʼs no question that weʼre all the more indebted its tripartite typology of social formations (primi- to Lacan, once weʼve dropped notions like structure, tives, states, capitalism) was inadequate, and would the symbolic, or the signifier, which are thoroughly have to be complemented with a fourth type – the misguided [mauvaises], and which Lacan himself nomadic war-machine. In the Papers, Guattari was has always managed to turn on their head in order himself developing an interesting notion of what he to show their inverse side. (Negotiations, pp. 28, calls ʻaudio-visualʼ societies, which, for some reason, 13–14) did not make it into the final draft of the book. Years This ʻinverse sideʼ of the symbolic is what Lacan later, in 1984, Deleuze revealed that ʻwe never did called the Real, and Anti-Oedipus presented itself, understand the “body without organs” in the same from start to finish, as a theory of the Real. Yet an wayʼ (Two Regimes, p. 239), which is faint consolation, orthodoxy had grown up around Lacan that under- perhaps, to contemporary readers trying to compre- stood the Real (via the objet petit a) simply as an hend the concept on their own. But this was precisely internal gap or impasse within the symbolic. ʻHow the ʻconcept of the conceptʼ that Deleuze and Guattari many interpretations of Lacanianismʼ, Deleuze and wound up formulating in What in Philosophy?, and Guattari asked, ʻovertly or secretly pious, have in this that no doubt was itself the result of their collaborative manner invoked … a gap in the Symbolic?.… Despite efforts: ʻItʼs not a question of grouping things under some fine books by certain disciples of Lacan, we a single concept, but of relating each concept to the wonder if Lacanʼs thought really goes in this direc- variables that determine its mutationsʼ (Negotiations, tionʼ (Anti-Oedipus, pp. 82–3, 53). In Anti-Oedipus, p. 31). Deleuze and Guattari attempted to follow a different path, but one they insisted had been marked out by Dinner with Lacan Lacan himself. For Lacan, it was psychosis (and not In the end, however, perhaps the most important con- neurosis or perversion) that was closest to the Real, tribution of Guattariʼs Anti-Oedipus papers will be since psychotics were ʻforeclosedʼ from the symbolic the insights they provide into Deleuze and Guattariʼs – so Deleuze and Guattari followed Lacanʼs lead and complex relation to . Anti-Oedipus is took psychosis (schizophrenia) as their model for the sometimes characterized as an anti-Lacanian book, unconscious. ʻLacan himself says, “Iʼm not getting but it is clear from Guattariʼs notes that this is not the much help”ʼ, Deleuze later commented, so ʻwe thought case. ʻAt first there was no hostility toward Lacanismʼ, weʼd give him some schizophrenic helpʼ (Negotia- Guattari writes: ʻIt was the logic of our development tions, pp. 13–14). Moreover, they showed that there that led us to emphasize the dangers of an a-historic is an intimate link between psychosis and the social interpretation of the signifier.ʼ On this score, Guattari field. Far from being preoccupied with personal or is indeed critical of Lacanʼs conception of the sym- familial concerns, psychotic deliriums are marked bolic, which relies on what Guattari considers to be a by an extraordinary political, geographic, and even ʻreally bad linguistics (Saussuro-Jakobsonian)ʼ: ʻLacan world-historical content, which had often been ignored was wrong to identify displacement and condensation or explained away by psychoanalysts and psychiatrists. with Jakobsonʼs metaphor and metonymy on the level Itʼs the Russians that worry the psychotic, or the Aryans of primary processes.ʼ Even Foucaultʼs concept of dis- and Jews, or Joan of Arc and the Great Mongol, the course comes in for a similar criticism from Guattari: circulation of money and the conspiracies of power ʻIʼm trying to read The Archaeology of Knowledge by – an entire unconscious investment of the social field. Foucault; but itʼs so hard for me to get through this This is what allowed Deleuze and Guattari to establish kind of thing. It seems to me that your friend is getting a precise relation, indicated in their subtitle, between lost in linguistics and other structures.ʼ In a prescient capitalism and schizophrenia, since capitalism itself, text entitled ʻHjelmslev and Immanenceʼ, we can see while perfectly rational in its axioms, is itself fully Guattari rethinking the signifier/signified distinction in delirious in its functioning. terms of Hjelmslevʼs notion of language as a system of Guattari summarizes his and Deleuzeʼs relation to continuous flows of content and expression – a shift Lacan in a revealing text: ʻIt was at the end of his that would come even further to the fore in A Thou- analysis of the representation of desire that Lacan sand Plateaus. But in the end, this negative critique is found the objet a, the residual object. We started

38 from the other end, production and desiring machines, p. 144). (Among interpreters, only Eugene Holland, in and found all our figures of representation on the his Deleuze and Guattariʼs Anti-Oedipus: Introduc- wayʼ (349). Many of Guattariʼs papers, as indicated tion to Schizoanalysis [1999], has dealt with Deleuze by their titles, are attempts to rethink the status of and Guattariʼs relation to Lacan systematically and Lacanʼs concept of the objet petit a: ʻIn Lacan, the sympathetically.) The publication of the Anti-Oedipus a Plays the Part of the Body without Organsʼ, ʻOf a Papers will perhaps help focus these debates concern- Machinic Interpretation of Lacanʼs “ a”ʼ. Throughout, ing the Lacanian heritage on what seems to be their Guattari exhibits an inevitable ambivalence towards true differend – namely, the status of the Real. Put Lacan. At times, he praises Lacanʼs efforts at ʻdeter- crudely, in the ʻorthodoxʼ view, the Real marks the ritorializationʼ (ʻWhatʼs interesting about Lacan is points of ʻimpasseʼ or ʻruptureʼ in the representative or that he is crazier than most people, and that, in spite discursive structure (the objet petit a as the ʻimpossible of his efforts to “normalize” everything, he manages Realʼ). By contrast, Deleuze and Guattariʼs hetero- to slip, and slip back into deterritorializing the signʼ), dox approach starts with the Real, and diagnoses the while at other times he expresses his frustration that manner in which an immanent unconscious (the Real) Lacan does not go far enough: ʻI think he has only comes to be represented, mediated and symbolized gone halfway on the path to deterritorializationʼ; ʻhe (transcendence), and yet is not an immediate or raw experience beneath its representations, but rather must itself be constructed and produced – the unconscious as a factory and not a theatre, or, desire as the produc- tion of the Real. In this sense, Anti-Oedipus could be said to have brought about an identification of the Real with the Idea (the syntheses of the unconscious). A final surprise: Guattariʼs papers reveal that Lacan himself seems to have made efforts to monitor both the progress and the content of Anti-Oedipus. On 1 interrupts his deterritorialization process to the letter October 1971, Guattari received an ʻurgent convocation (no doubt a defence against his own schizophrenia. It to Lacanʼs officeʼ: would be useful to reread his analyses of Schreber, ʻWhat have you been doing over the past two and find where he gets stuck)ʼ. Indeed, Deleuze and years? Weʼve lost contact.ʼ … He wanted to see Guattari undertook extensive rereadings of the classic the manuscript. I retreated behind Gilles who only Freudian cases of Schreber, Little Hans and the Wolf wants to show him something completely finished. I Man in order to defend their position. And despite told him that I still consider myself to be a front- line Lacanian, but Iʼve chosen to scout out areas the disclaimer in Anti-Oedipus (ʻNo, we have never that have not been explored much, instead of trail- seen a schizophrenicʼ, p. 380), the Papers reveal that ing in the wake. Guattariʼs reflections on psychoses were based on his experience with schizophrenic patients, which was Lacan nonetheless insists on another meeting, where rather considerable. Guattari attempts to lay out verbally the entire argu- ment of the book: It seems to that it is much easier to help a schizo- Dinner invitation, next week, to lay the cards on phrenic patient than a neurotic one. Easy, on the the table … Impossible to back out.… ʻSo what condition that you work at it full time.… The case is schizoanalysis?ʼ [Lacan asks].… I laid it all of R.A., my first schizo, took up at least four to five out. The ʻ aʼ is a desiring machine; deterritorializa- hours a day. It took over everything. Including my tion, history.… He was pleased with our meeting. friends and even my girlfriends. Reassured. Or so he said! Stooped, evidently Revealingly, recent ʻNeo-Lacanianʼ interpreters of exhausted, limping imperceptibly, his silhouette disappeared into the night. Deleuze, like Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek, have deliberately ignored Anti-Oedipus – a rather obvious Several months after the publication of Anti-Oedipus, avoidance of Deleuze and Guattariʼs critiques of Lacan would similarly summon Deleuze to his office, Lacan. Instead, they have tended to focus on earlier telling him, ʻI could use someone like youʼ. We have psychoanalytic texts of Deleuze such as Masochism no record, to my knowledge, of what Lacan actually and Logic of Sense, even though Deleuze himself thought about Anti-Oedipus, but Guattariʼs papers insisted that ʻAnti-Oedipus marks a breakʼ with these seem to indicate that he was anything but antagonistic earlier works, which were still too timid (Negotiations, towards them.

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